Nwando Achebe captures Kanner and Chaudhuri prizes for The Female King of Colonial Nigeria

Nwando Achebe, daughter of famed Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, has been awarded the Western Association of Women Historians' 2012 Barbara 'Penny' Kanner Prize and 2012 Gita Chaudhuri Prize for her second book, The Female King of Colonial Nigeria.  

The association is "the largest of the regional women's historical associations in the United States." Its mission is to "promote the interests of women historians both in academic settings and in the field of history generally." The Gita Chaudhuri Prize is awarded for “the best monograph about women in rural environments, from any era and any place in the world, published by a WAWH member”; the Barbara 'Penny' Kanner Prize is awarded "to honor a book, book chapter, article, or electronic media that has been verifiably published or posted in the two years prior to the award year and which illustrates the use of a specific set of primary sources."

Nigeria is a familiar topic for the historian. Her research interests, according to the Michigan State University website, are "the use of oral history in the study of women, gender and power in Eastern Nigeria." Her first book, Farmers, Traders, Warriors, and Kings: Female Power and Authority in Northern Igboland, 1900–1960, was published by Heinemann in 2005.

Achebe is Professor of History at Michigan State University. The Female King of Colonial Nigeria was published in January 2011.